As this is the day we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., the conversation I've had the past couple of days with the art restorer has shown itself to be quite timely.
I do hope you will agree.
It all began with the January 13th update.
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posted by Tommy Stathes
Jan 13, 2018 • 1:53AM PST
January 2018
Dear Backers,
Hope the new year is treating everyone well so far!
Production gears are starting up again after a fairly quiet and prolonged holiday season. Our project collaborators are finally able to start bringing the Bobby Bumps collection further toward the finish line once again, after about a month of being bottlenecked by work and family constraints.
Thankfully, all of the new digital organ scores by Charlie Judkins are "in the can" as they say. The previously unknown footage mentioned in earlier updates has been scanned, cleaned, and otherwise prepped for compositing.
One of the wildest films in this set, Bobby Bumps' Last Smoke (1919)...picture Bobby smoking, then hallucinating and dreaming of being in a harem with scantily clad adult women and lions running around!...is being sourced from a rare 28mm print in my collection. It just so happens that I have a heavily water damaged backup 28mm print (both of these are circa 1920 vintage!) and it only recently occurred to me that this second print contains a few frames here and there which are missing from the main print as a result of splices. As our collaborators start revisiting their tasks, I'm taking some time to determine if unique bits of replacement footage are crucial to the story, and if so, whether or not they can be sufficiently restored and reinserted into the film without glaring differences in picture quality. Stay tooned for a determination on that!
Beyond "Last Smoke" and some final tweaks on the rest of the films, such as correcting title lengths and tinting some (yes, these were mostly tinted in their original form), there are very few remaining production tasks: some graphic design for packaging and disc menus. Then, finally, authoring and mastering--which will be done by our friends at Thunderbean Animation.
Now, more than ever, it seems like next month's update will be the one where I can say the project has finally been handed over to Steve at Thunderbean, and we will simply be waiting on him, at that point, to wrap everything up so it can go to replication.
Fingers crossed...
In the meantime, here's an additional sneak preview of yet another film to be included in the set: Bobby Bumps Helps a Book Agent (1916). Check out the stellar quality in this one—it comes from a 35mm safety fine grain print made by Bray Studios in the 1950s. It's so rare to be able to see these early cartoons in such sharp quality. It's as if we're looking right at the original artwork, under the animation camera. The version in this video has been steadied shot-by-shot, and there will also be dust-busting work present for an even cleaner picture in the final version you receive on disc. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6iyNXCMnDE
Sincerely,
TJS
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I watched the new one right away! Then I responded with my feedback.
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Hahaha! That kid is a hoot! One of the things I like is the time capsule the series represents. Folks may object to the portrayal of folks of different ethnicity, but that's the way it was back then. I think it emphasizes how far America has come since that time.
I was surprised at how long the cartoon was - wow!
Very appropriate timing for this one, too, with all this cold weather we are having on the East Coast.
Thanks for the update, Tommy!
Faustina in Savannah"
He wrote me back this morning.
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Dear Faustina,
I'm so glad you enjoyed the update, and the cartoon I shared. Yes, it's just so fascinating to see how different things were in pop culture/media just a century ago...and I agree, it shows us just how far we've come. Sometimes it reminds me that we still have a long way to go in certain respects.
Hope you're staying warm these days, and I can't wait to finally wrap this Bobby project for everyone to enjoy.
Yours,
Tommy"
How timely, as I said at the beginning of this post.
Circumstance? I think not.
i thank You, God.
